Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

It's been more than a year since I played The Sims, partly because I've kept myself too busy and partly because I'd reached an impasse with one of my families and didn't know what to do with them.

You see, this couple had adopted a baby and the baby was so demanding that there was no way to meet both the baby's needs and the couple's needs.

In the meantime, a friend suggested I could have one of the parents quit their job to stay home and take care of the baby. The problem was that the baby was still so demanding the parent left with his charge could get no sleep or meet any of his own needs.

The morning he actually did a few things like take a nap and get himself breakfast, immediately the social worker came over and removed the baby. You know what? I'm fine with that. The couple was far happier before this complication.

That's the thing about The Sims. As realistic as it can be at times, it's frustratingly unrealistic at others. Even the newest parents, I'd imagine, get a little bit of sleep. People do manage to take care of their babies without quitting their jobs and moving into the nursery.

I'm sure there are tips online to get you past this problem, but I never investigated any of them. I didn't want to admit I was a Sims addict. Now that I've proven that I have my Sims habit under control, maybe I'll allow myself to search out some tips now and then.

The first time I ever played The Sims, I sat down at 11 p.m. Friday night. When I looked up, the birds were singing and it was light out. It was 7 a.m. I've cut back considerably since then.

My sister, who has also played The Sims, says that some of the unrealistic aspects irritated her to no end. For example, fulfilling all the daily needs of the Sims was frustrating because it took them so long to do some of them. There is a game clock that runs much faster than an actual clock. It tells you how long it's taking people to do things. It shouldn't take half an hour to use the bathroom, my sister complained.

Some aspects seem more like bugs than anything else. For example, trash that doesn't get cleaned up eventually becomes permanent, with flies buzzing around it and everything.

Of course, the first family I started out with, the Doobie family, had problems which stemmed in part from their creation. I created them with my ex-boyfriend, The Invisible Man, who had different goals in mind than I did. When it came to determining their personalities, The Invisible Man plugged in values that made the husband and wife wholly incompatible. This has been a continuing problem for their marriage.

Although I finally got them on civil terms, they act almost like strangers in the house. They refuse to sleep in the same bed, and I had to get the wife to befriend her neighbors so she could get some social interaction.

The husband, a quiet, artistic sort, likes to spend time with his son, who's studious and neat. Neither of them can make any sense of the mother, who is slovenly, outgoing and loud. They did have a daughter, but she was sent away to military school because she was never happy enough to study.

Yes, Sims have to be happy in order to do anything productive, including studying or working out. Unless it's an activity they also find fun. No matter how much she played, she was never happy enough to study, and so she was sent away. Child rearing is a very difficult task in the world of The Sims, and unforgiving.

My sister and I also found it amusing that The Sims demand entertainment when they get too bored. But the truth is, in real life you have to force yourself to do things you might not want to do. Happiness, our society believes, is entirely optional. You do what you have to do.

But in the world of The Sims, it's all about their personal needs. As long as they're happy, everything's cool. And if the husband and wife aren't getting along, you can invite the neighbor over. And even if she's tickling the neighbor between the husband and the television, everybody's happy.

The more I think about it, the more I think that perhaps The Sims seems unrealistic because it's too perfect, too predictable. Sims adapt and react in very specific ways, and you have to figure out how to get them to do what you want. Human motives are much more complicated.

Now, I've known couples who appeared to be opposites, yet didn't resort to sleeping in separate beds. Plus, I've known slacker students who got failing grades and yet never had to go to military school.

But the point is simply that humans are far more flexible and complicated than a computer program could ever hope to imitate. And thank goodness, because otherwise you'd have a lot more kids in military school.

Copyright 2004 by Alyce Wilson

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